


not one shred of who i'll be

by Katranga



Series: Season 2 Missing Scenes [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora, keith and lance talk it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 01:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katranga/pseuds/Katranga
Summary: Was it irony or just Keith's shitty luck that his dream of finding his true place among the stars played out in the cruelest way possible?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I always used to preface angsty fic saying I wasn't good at writing emotions, but I'm finally getting comfortable digging into characters' core wounds lol. It's canon compliant expect that he's still wearing that Galra suit bc I honestly don't understand when he had the time to change?  
> Title from the song Through by Jimmy Eat World.  
> Anyway, I still can't believe we didn't get this reveal, so here's my interpretation of how it might have gone, with a nice shippy slant. Enjoy!

The great vastness of space swelled before Keith, closer than he ever imagined he’d be able to reach while growing up on Earth. Where he’d crane his neck back every night to watch the stars and search for mysterious blinking lights with a painful yearning. Waiting for someone beyond his imagining to take him away.

So he had to wonder, coming back from the Blade of Marmora base with a new truth and an echoing heaviness settling into his stomach: was it irony or just his shitty luck that his dream of finding his true place among the stars played out in the cruelest way possible?

Keith kept his gaze focused on the castle ship slowly growing bigger, a burst of shining white in the bleeding darkness of space. He didn’t dare turn his head in the direction of Kolivan, standing intimidatingly tall and scarily silent to his right. Nor did he seek out comfort from Shiro, whose prosthetic arm was mere inches from brushing his.

Keith’s bloodied hands tightened on the controls of his lion.

Something bubbled in his throat. It might’ve been laughter. It might’ve been a sob. What he really wanted to do was scream. At every guidance counselor and social worker who’d ever looked at him funny, because they were right! There was something wrong him. Just nothing they ever guessed. It wasn’t because he was a foster kid and it wasn’t because he was gay and it wasn’t because he was Korean with no contact to his roots—it was because the other half of him was alien. And not the good kind. The monstrous kind. The kind that had been ravaging the universe for millennia. Who destroyed without thinking. Whose selfishness knew no mercy.

A weight landed on his shoulder.

“Keith,” Shiro said mutedly. He squeezed Keith’s shoulder with his human hand. “We’re here.”

Keith hadn’t even noticed he’d landed.

He wasn’t sure he could force himself to leave his lion. Because the next thing he had to do was to tell his teammates—his _friends_ —that part of what they’d been fighting was inside him all along.

 What if they didn’t let him back into his lion when he revealed he was part Galra?

A grunt of displeasure poked at his consciousness. Red didn’t care. Red had picked him, chosen him, and would destroy anyone that tried to take him from her.

But what if they couldn’t bear the thought of fighting alongside him? What if they kicked him out? His gut reaction was to take Red and run.

 _You're only thinking of yourself, as usual!_ The accusation of that fake Shiro came back like a barbed boomerang. _Then you’ve chosen to be alone._

He closed his eyes. Alone, that would be nothing new. But the team would never be able to form Voltron without Red. A new paladin should be able to take his place.

Red growled, threatening to fly off with him right now if he kept thinking about leaving her.

“Hey,” Shiro said. Red’s mouth was open. Kolivan was already descending into the hangar. “Are you alright?”

“Mm hm,” Keith replied, because his whole life had been a lie, so why should that stop now?

When Keith didn’t unbuckle his harness or make any indication whatsoever he was about to move, Shiro crouched in front of him, even though he should be introducing Kolivan to Allura.

They were allies now, right? Allies with a few Galra. So why did Keith want to peel off his skin?

He looked at Shiro but didn’t see him. He saw Shiro’s robot arm. A reminder of all the Galra had done. Abducted him, tortured him, forced him to kill for sport. They’d taken Pidge’s family, they’d devastated Allura and Coran’s whole world.

 _I will not have some Quiznaking Galra soldier on the bridge of my ship!_ Allura’s sharp voice hit him like a slap now. A barely restrained ferocity that only grew harsher in his memory.

How was he supposed to look her in the eye and tell her there’d been a Galra on board all this time? That she put her hope and faith to save the universe in one?

“Keith,” Shiro said gently. Keith finally focused on his face, the blistered scar, the shock of white hair—a pointed indicator that he’d aged beyond his years. And his eyes, so open and honest it jerked his heart in his chest. “You know this doesn’t change anything, right?”

The choked feeling in his throat came back. Because now Shiro was lying.

One small, insignificant example was that the idea of his mother would never be the same. On good days, he could convince himself that the woman he’d never known abandoned him because she was overwhelmed by the prospect of motherhood, and fled before she could ruin him. On his bad days—and every day he got shuffled to a new foster home—she was nothing but selfish. His father, too. One first, then the other. Like legs giving out, leaving Keith struggling to stand.

But now… The simulated rumble of an army’s footsteps outside his old house still shook his bones. Galra. A Galra mother. More than anything, he should be horrified. And he was, he definitely was. But more than that, he was angrier than he’d ever been at her. She had the whole universe at her fingertips and she left him on _Earth_. An empty, lonely planet with no contact to other worlds.

He felt so stupid now. Staring up at the stars as a kid, wishing and wanting to be among them. Pouring over every alien book and TV show and conspiracy theory he could get his hands on, drawing little green men in his notebooks, dreaming of the day they’d arrive and tell him he didn’t belong on Earth, that he was meant for something so much more.

Naively, he’d thought he was finally getting his wish with Voltron. He should’ve known better.

This changed everything.

But he couldn’t argue with Shiro. He was at least pretending to still be on his side. And with the fate of the universe at stake, who was he to divert Shiro’s attention? They had a war to win, didn’t they? And Galra to kill.

So Keith nodded. “Yeah.”

“Can you walk?”

He bristled. “Of course.”

And proceeded to limp out of his lion, breathing through the whole-body ache that returned as soon as he left the relative comfort of the pilot’s seat.

Red pushed a final warning that if he ran away in a passenger pod she was coming after him and scooping him up like a misbehaving cub.

The others were waiting in the hangar. Allura’s body posture was tight, ready for a fight but held fast by diplomacy as she spoke to the Galra bowing at her feet.

Keith averted his gaze. It ended up on Lance, who was gaping at him like the asshole he was. “What are you wearing?”

He hadn’t had time to change out of the Galra suit before they left. It clung to him too tightly, cold sweat gluing the material to his skin.

Hunk elbowed him. “Maybe ask him what the heck happened to him first?”

Keith wiped a hand over his face and it came away smeared with blood. Shit. He shook his head, dismissing their concern, and tuned into what Kolivan was saying. Their timeline had been moved up. They had to be ready to attack as soon as possible.

Keith was wavering somewhere between exhilarated and terrified, hands shaking, because he had one last obstacle to hurtle before throwing himself into preparation.

“Wait,” he said as they all turned to leave. His mouth was desert dry. “I have… I need to say something.”

And then all attention was on him. He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Except Lance’s, because he knew exactly how he’d react. He was going to gloat about how he’d picked his rival right—there was something wrong with Keith, and nobody ever should’ve trusted him.

“Is it that you’re gonna be sick?” Lance asked bluntly. “Because you look like shit.”

“ _You_ look like shit!” he shot back, falling into the easy, almost comforting rhythm of arguing with him.

Allura rubbed her temples “We don’t have time for this, paladins.” She nodded at Kolivan. “Please follow me to the bridge.”

Keith shot a look at Shiro, who held out a placating hand. “Take a beat, Keith. Clean up a bit. Maybe change?”

 _Calm the fuck down before you reveal this awful thing about yourself_ , was the undercurrent of his suggestion.

Keith nodded, fists clenched, as the hangar emptied. He wasn’t in the right head space to break himself open and beg not to be turned away. One foul look and he’d blow up, because as guilty as he was, this wasn’t his _fault_. He hadn’t meant to lie, to trick them into welcoming him. He’d done plenty to distance himself—this was all their faults for insisting they bond and become a team. His first family.

So he’d take a beat. A few minutes. To settle into the reality of this new blood. Old blood. Either way, impossible to get rid of. He was stuck with himself.

“So…”

Keith blinked, startled out of his thoughts. He thought everyone left, but Lance was still there. By the expectant expression on his face, he’d been waiting for Keith to say something for quite a while.

“ _I_ have time,” Lance offered. He waved a hand up and down Keith’s body. “What is this? Did you go scuba diving and pick a fight with a space shark?”

Keith stared at him. Could this guy not read a room?

“Yeah, Lance,” he snapped. “I fought a fucking space shark, you got me.”

He moved to walk past him, but Lance grabbed his arm. “No, c’mon. What’s up?”

Keith looked down at the warm brown hand wrapped around his elbow. Slowly lifted his cold glare to Lance.

He released him, palms up in surrender. “Okay, alright.” He paused, worry working over his usually carefree face. “When I said you looked like shit I meant in, like, a concerned way. What happened?”

 “I wanted answers,” Keith said. Lance was always hard to shake off, and Keith was too exhausted to put up much of a fight. Besides, he’d have to admit the truth sooner or later. Sooner, preferably, so nobody could accuse him of being a sneak as well as a monster. “They made me fight for them.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lance seemed taken aback Keith had offered even that much. “You won, right? You got your answers?”

“Kind of.” Keith breathed in through his nose, trying to force the truth out of his throat. Just get it over with. He’d tell Lance and Lance would go running around the castle with it and Keith wouldn’t have to see everyone’s horrified reactions.

“I’m Galra,” Keith said, a weird twist to the word, like his mouth was fighting against him to articulate it.

Lance waited. When Keith didn’t continue, he said, “Galra…phobic? Galra-repulsed? What—”

“ _Half_ ,” Keith spat. “I’m half-Galra. I have Galra blood. My mother… _Galra_.”

He leaned forward, inspecting. “Dude, I know you’ve got some fluffy hair, but you’re not purple at all—”

He shoved his chest. “Can you be serious for a second?” He whipped out his blade of Marmora, which they’d graciously allowed him to keep after he awakened it. He presented it with shaking hands. “I’ve had this my whole life.” He forced it to grow from the dagger he’d always carried to a weighty sword. “That’s what it did at their base. Only Galra blood can do that.”

 _Galra blood runs through your veins._ That refrain was going to keep him up at night, pounding in his skull.

Lance’s gaze flicked between the sword and Keith’s face a few times before finally settling on his face. “Did your mom look Galra? Did your dad know? Did—”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged tightly, shrinking the blade and tucking it away. “I don’t know anything. Apparently.”

Lance nodded, not giving away much. And that was the most aggravating thing Keith could focus on right now, because Lance was supposed to be laughing, and bragging and saying shit like “Lmao, of course you’re part of that evil race we’ve been fighting! That makes so much sense!”

But he was just looking at him, brows drawn together in something that looked too close to pity.

“What?” Keith demanded. “What do you have to say?”

“Me?” he said. “Who cares about me, how do you feel?”

How did he _feel_? It was the same question school counselors and state-mandated therapists repeated by rote, tossed back at him with genuine concern by the guy that had been biting his head off for months.

How did he feel that his whole life up until this point had been a lie? A giant cosmic joke?

Something hot and molten rose in Keith’s chest. He grabbed a crowbar out of the pile of tools used to work on their lions and swung it up over his head. Brought it down with as much strength as his aching limbs would allow and hit the floor. The clang echoed through the hangar again, and again. And then a dent appeared in the floor and he hurled the crowbar at the bay doors.

“That’s how I _fucking_ feel,” he choked out. He ran a hand through his tangled hair and Lance nodded as if he actually cared about what Keith was saying and wasn’t just memorizing his every move to tell the others about later. Regale them with how his greatest enemy lost his shit.

He continued anyway. He couldn’t stop himself. The universe was already laughing at him, Lance might as well join in on the fun.

“I feel fucking stupid. I feel like the biggest goddamn idiot for thinking my life might be good,” Keith said raggedly. “I must be part of some sick game. Because I used to get lost in forests hoping for an alien abduction. I hitchhiked to New Mexico to visit Roswell. I thought Voltron was my _dreams_ coming true.” His voice cracked and shame hit him all over again because he was tearing up into front of fucking Lance.

“It’s okay, man,” he said gently.

“No, it’s not.” Bitter tears pricked his eyes. “I wanted answers, Lance. I fought for them, I almost died for them. And then, when I finally decided I didn’t need them, that I “knew who I was”, that fucking sword popped out and ruined my life!”

“Your life’s not ruined.” He was so calm. Why did Lance get to be calm? What right did he have, when Keith was falling apart?

“Oh, right. I forgot that the Galra _aren’t_ mindless killing machines out to destroy the universe—”

“They’re not all bad,” Lance cut in. “The Blade of Marmora is helping us. They freed Shiro—”

“Because they needed him for something,” Keith said bitterly. “They only helped him get out when he was the perfect soldier. And they’ve let Zarkon grow bigger and stronger for literally a thousand years. Even the good guy Galra are shit!”

His exclamation reverberated through the hangar. He was right, he knew he was right. And if the best a Galra could be was shit, what did that make him?

Lance shoved his fists in his pockets. “Well, you’re not shit.”

Keith stared at him, chest too tight as he fought for breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you had nothing to do with what the Galra have done. That’s not your fault.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure Allura will see it that way.”

He expected Lance to get defensive over the princess. Instead he pressed his lips together in thought before saying, “Well… she’ll have to adjust.”

“And Coran? And Pidge? And Shiro?” Keith challenged. “And any Galra-invaded planet we try to help after they learn that there’s a Galra on Team Voltron? They’re all just gonna _adjust_?”

“What are you getting mad at me for?” He finally rose to the bait of an easy fight. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Well, not everybody has the luxury of life magically working out for them.”

Lance looked around the hangar wildly. “You can’t be talking about me.”

“You’ve got a big huge family, and Hunk and Pidge, and everybody loves you—”

He wheezed a laugh. “Oh my god. Did you come back through a different dimension? Please direct me to the one where I don’t get shot down or—or tied to a tree whenever I flirt with someone. Where is it, exactly, that Shiro doesn’t ignore everything I say? And my family is a gazillion miles away, Keith! They probably think I’m dead. How is that working out for me?”

Keith ducked his head. He hadn’t considered any of that. He just saw Lance goofing around with everybody, smiling and laughing like he had this buoying certainty that all would be well. Keith had _just_ managed to stick his head above water, and now he was sinking again, weighed down with Galra blood.

“You got to be a fighter pilot,” Keith mumbled.

Lance released some crude-sounding Spanish. “Only because the best cadet in the whole Garrison got kicked out after his mentor vanished.”

He shrugged, shoulders at his ears. “So that worked out for you.”

“Okay, _enough_.” Lance grabbed his arm and started stomping out of the hangar. “It’s gonna be fine, you fucking drama queen.”

Keith let himself get dragged into the hall before digging his heels in. Lance kept tugging and Keith snapped, “Just give me a minute. I wanted a _minute_ alone and you ruined that.”

“What do you think’s gonna happen?” Lance demanded.

Keith fought to match his glare, but he couldn’t look him in the eye when he said, “They could send me away.”

“What? Where? We’re in the middle of space.”

And the dismissal, the cluelessness in Lance’s response really pissed him off. Because maybe everything wasn’t always great for Lance, but he’d always had _people_. Keith knew that for sure. Lance didn’t grow up scared of getting kicked to a different foster home the second he made a mistake. Or they couldn’t handle that many kids anymore. Or they got tired of him. Or the foster system just decided, all on its own, that he didn’t belong where he was, and he had to pack up and move again.

“It never matters _where_.” Keith clenched his fists. “Just away!”

Lance’s features softened and Keith’s stomach curled in on itself. He’d revealed too much about himself. Given Lance way too much ammunition.

“Keith—”

He shouldered past him. “Forget it.”

He grabbed his elbow again, gentle but firm. “Look at me, dude.”

Keith wrenched out of his grasp, hissing when the sudden movement aggravated his wounds.

Lance crossed his arms and asked dryly, “Was that worth it?”

“Yup,” he grunted. “Leave me alone.”

Keith tried to slip past him, but Lance blocked his path down the hall. No matter how fast Keith tried to duck and swerve, Lance was there first, not touching him, just a patient obstruction.

 _You fight like a Galra._ Not today. He suddenly wondered if Zarkon had known. Had he been laughing along with the universe, knowing that another Galra had infiltrated Voltron?

Keith slipped up and tripped. Slammed into the wall and stayed leaning on it for support. “Fuck, Lance,” he panted. “Go away.”

“No. You’re gonna listen to me for once,” he said, not winded at all. Fuck him. “Red busted into the Galra base to save you and we thought you were a _goner_. We were seconds away from joining when you guys finally showed up.”

Keith leaned his head against the wall. “So?”

“So we’ve got your back!” he said, almost angry. “And even if we didn’t literally need you to form that giant robotic cat we use to save the universe, you’re part of the team, Keith. You’re not going anywhere.”

He was sounding suspiciously like Red. Unflinchingly supportive. A steel spine. So not what Keith expected.

Keith slid down the wall, clutching his side. “I thought you’d be thrilled. That there was finally a reason to get rid of me.”

Lance gaped. “How big of an asshole do you think I am? Don’t answer that,” he added before Keith could open his mouth.

So Keith didn’t say anything. He dropped his forehead on his knees and curled in on himself like concentrating all his pain in one spot would make it hurt less.

Lance took a seat next to him, long legs stretched across the floor. “Would you be thrilled?” he asked quietly. “If there was a reason to kick me out?”

Keith kept his gaze on the blank wall in front of him, not daring to glance in his direction. He only had to imagine a Lance-less castle for a moment before saying, “No. You’d be too easy to miss.”

“Really?” His voice hitched.

Keith licked his chapped lips. “Yeah, you’re…”

“The most devastatingly handsome sharpshooter of all time?”

“Loud.”

“Oh. Thanks,” he said flatly.

“No. I meant it in a good way.” He tried to organize his thoughts in a way that would let him express what he wanted. “Like, we’re in space, Lance—”

“Really?”

“Space is so big—”

“This is brand new information—”

He slapped his arm. “Shut up. It’s huge and it’s cold and it’s silent. Like, it _devours_ sound. And this ship is massive and could feel like a ghost ship but you—you fill it up somehow.”

“I fill space?” he said, vastly underwhelmed.

Keith scowled. He didn’t know how to articulate it, and Lance wasn’t even trying to help. “All I’m saying,” he said, irritation leaking into every word, “is that space would be lonely without you.”

Lance let out some sort of weird breath. Keith grudgingly looked his way. For a second Lance looked touched. Honestly, openly affected by Keith’s words.

Then he clutched his hands under his chin, purposely overdramatic. “Keith, that’s so sweet! Did you mean to be that nice to me?”

He shrugged, mumbling, “Whatever. I just don’t think they could replace you like they could me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah?”

He stared at him incredulously before shaking his head. “Who would fill the socially awkward emo hole in our lives if you were gone?”

Halfway through rolling his eyes, Keith got caught in Lance’s hug. A very awkward hug. Lance had Keith’s head tucked under his chin, so his face was smushed up against Lance’s collarbone, and it wasn’t comfortable in the slightest, but Keith didn’t put up much of a fight. He told himself he was too tired to resist, but he maybe didn’t actually mind it, either. He’d had a hard day.

“You’re an irreplaceable part of the team, Keith.” His words rumbled against Keith’s cheek. “And we’re keeping you, even if you grow big-ass ears and your hair turns purple.”

“Ugh, if that happens, I’m cutting it all off.”

“ _Ay dios_ , no! I’ve gotten attached to this stupid mullet.”

Keith sighed as Lance’s fingers smoothed over his hair. “Do you really have to pet it?”

“It’s right in front of me, I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Um, perhaps to let me go?”

“Um, perhaps no? We’re bonding?”

“Um, perhaps I still need to tell the others?”

Lance gave one last squeeze before releasing him. “Alright, quick confession before you go the healing pod.”

“There’s no time—”

“Buddy, you couldn’t even get past _me_ ,” Lance said as he hauled Keith to his feet. “You’re gonna have to make time.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at him. Self-deprecation wasn’t Lance’s bag. “You’re an irreplaceable part of the team, Lance,” he said, half-mockingly.

Lance’s responding grin lit up the whole hall. And something twisted in Keith’s throat again—not soul-crushing, just very _present_. Because that’s what he meant. Lance filled space. Made it something more than empty.

Lance slipped an arm under Keith’s shoulders to help him to the bridge, and even though he was pretty sure he could manage it himself, Keith let him help.

As soon as they reached the others, Lance said, “Everybody, your boy, your friend, your red paladin, Keith, has got some news.”

That got their full attention.

Shiro nodded at Keith encouragingly.

Keith’s eyes flicked to the panoramic window and the endless expanse of space where he lived. The Galra couldn’t take that from him. He was here now, and he was never going back to Earth.

Then he looked around the room at his fellow paladins, at Allura and Coran. His family. And that was something the Galra _could_ take, something his Galra blood could ruin. He’d never had something so special that could be wrecked so easily.

But maybe they cared for him as much as he did them. Maybe they wouldn’t let the universe’s joke be an unbridled success.

His gaze landed on Lance, whose encouraging smile was a little more nervous but no less bright. He finger gunned him.

Keith took a deep breath, and held out his blade of Marmora.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand then, y'know, Hunk and Pidge are mostly fine with it and Allura probably leaves to Contemplate.  
> Thanks for reading! Lemme know what you thought!  
> You can find me on tumblr at [katranga](http://katranga.tumblr.com) if you like.


End file.
